The temple inside the walled Srivijaya-era settlement of Sathing Phra, with a twenty-metre relic chedi, a fourteen-metre reclining Buddha and a moat still measurable on the ground — the oldest thing in Songkhla province.
วัดจะทิ้งพระ · Wat Chathing Phra
| Official name | วัดจะทิ้งพระ — Wat Chathing Phra |
|---|---|
| Where | Chathing Phra, Sathing Phra, Songkhla |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unread Two independent secondary compilations — the Prince of Songkla University library's southern Thailand database and a digitised Fine Arts Department list of ancient monuments in Songkhla — both give the registration as ราชกิจจานุเบกษา ฉบับพิเศษ เล่ม ๙๒ ตอน ๑๓๖, 21 July B.E. 2518 (1975), over a protected area of 9 ไร่ 3 งาน 20 ตารางวา. They agree with each other, which is worth something, but the 1975-era gazette issue could not be opened in the Royal Gazette's own document service for this page. The citation is therefore reported in prose and deliberately NOT placed in the gazette fields, because nobody read the instrument. Note separately that the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre records the ancient SETTLEMENT around the temple as not registered; that is a different object and the two do not contradict each other. |
| Coordinates | 7.472469, 100.441331 ONEP cultural-environment register, site 4820 |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
No instrument establishing a foundation date was located for this page. The documented events are restorations, not foundations: an Ayutthaya-period campaign attributed to an abbot named Phra Khru In Mauli around B.E. 2109 to 2111, and a Rattanakosin restoration of B.E. 2477 (1934). The first of those comes from a single published account without a primary chronicle citation beside it.
Wat Chathing Phra stands inside the walls of an ancient settlement, and that is the whole point of it. The Sathing Phra peninsula is a narrow spit of land between the Gulf of Thailand and Songkhla Lake, and it sat on the sea route between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea when the Thai kingdoms of the north did not yet exist. The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre records the settlement's water-filled moat as an irregular quadrilateral with measured sides — 280 metres north, 270 east, 305 south, 275 west — and dates occupation on the evidence of what has come out of the ground across roughly the eleventh to nineteenth Buddhist centuries. Excavation has produced bronze figures of Avalokitesvara, Chinese ceramics of the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming periods, stone ornaments, glass beads and iron tools. This is a port that traded, and a temple grew where it had been.
The founding date everybody repeats is B.E. 1542, and it will not survive contact with the record. It appears in the narrative field of the ONEP register and in popular accounts, and a published Silpakorn-side history dates the original shrine instead, on stylistic grounds, to the sixteenth Buddhist century. Those two are not the same claim. Local legend offers a choice of founders — a ruler of Sathing Phra remembered as Chao Phraya Krung Thong, or a princess and prince carrying Buddha relics toward Lanka who set some down on this shore. These are chronicle and legend, told here as such, and no instrument dating the foundation was found for this page.
The name is its own small puzzle and the sources give three explanations, none of them official. One is simple phonetic drift from Sathing Phra, the older name of the place, which is why both names are still used interchangeably — the ONEP register titles its own entry with both. One is the relic legend, in which somebody asks whether the Buddha relic is really to be abandoned here, ทิ้ง being the Thai for abandon. And one is philological: an opinion attributed to Rama V in a letter of April 1934 deriving the name from Jantiphra, a Mahayana temple name in Java. That last is at least the right kind of guess for a peninsula whose excavated bronzes are Mahayana.
What is documented, as against told, is restoration. A published account attributes an Ayutthaya-period campaign to an abbot named Phra Khru In Mauli around B.E. 2109 to 2111, in the aftermath of raiding along this coast, with court labour behind it — reported here as an account rather than a record, because no primary chronicle citation was placed beside it. A Rattanakosin restoration is dated to B.E. 2477 (1934). The chedi as it stands shows both hands: an inverted-bell relic chedi of the Lankan type, with the base later reworked into an octagon carrying pointed niches in a manner attributed to the reign of King Narai.
Two secondary compilations that agree with one another give the temple's ancient-monument registration as a Royal Gazette announcement of 21 July B.E. 2518 (1975) over 9 rai 3 ngan and 20 square wa. That instrument could not be opened for this page and so it is written out here in prose rather than entered as a citation. It is worth noticing that the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre separately records the surrounding ancient settlement as not registered — the temple compound and the archaeological site around it are different objects with different protection, and anyone reading the two records side by side should not take one for the other.
The Phra Maha That chedi: twenty metres tall on a base seventeen metres a side, fired brick and coral brick set in mortar, in the inverted-bell Lankan form, with sixteen stucco disciple figures ranged around the neck and four pointed niches holding Buddha images on the later octagonal base.
The reclining Buddha in its wihan: brick and stucco, fourteen metres long and two metres high, lying on the right side with the right hand supporting the head, attributed to the Ayutthaya period and repeatedly renovated since.
The wihan murals, roughly a century old, painted by named local artisans and showing scenes from the life of the Buddha — the visit to his mother in Tavatimsa, the descent, the assault of Mara, the Great Renunciation — in a distinctly southern manner.
The bell tower, put up in the Fifth Reign, about nine metres tall and decorated in stucco relief worked in the idiom of southern shadow-puppet figures.
The moat of the ancient settlement, still traceable around the temple: an irregular quadrilateral with sides recorded by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre at 280, 270, 305 and 275 metres.
The abbot's residence, Kuti Suwannakhiri, dated to B.E. 2450 (1907), with carved wooden latticework.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | A working temple as well as an archaeological site. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off in the wihan of the reclining Buddha. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Chathing Phra, Amphoe Sathing Phra, on the peninsula road roughly midway between Songkhla town and Ranot — about an hour north of Songkhla by road along the spit. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
That is what tradition says, and it is not established. The date B.E. 1542 appears in the narrative field of the ONEP register and in most popular accounts, while a published stylistic history dates the original shrine to the sixteenth Buddhist century instead — a different claim altogether. No instrument dating the foundation was found for this page. What is documented is the ground: the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre dates occupation of the surrounding settlement across roughly the eleventh to nineteenth Buddhist centuries on excavated material, which makes the site genuinely old even though the temple's own founding is not fixed.
Both Wat Sathing Phra and Wat Chathing Phra are in current use, and the ONEP register titles its own entry with both. The simplest explanation offered is phonetic drift from the older place name Sathing Phra. Two other explanations circulate: a relic legend in which someone asks whether the Buddha relic is to be abandoned here, and a philological opinion attributed to Rama V deriving the name from a Mahayana temple name in Java. All three are told as tradition; none rests on a document.
It is the temple's relic chedi, in the inverted-bell form associated with Lankan Buddhism, recorded at twenty metres tall on a base seventeen metres a side, built of fired brick and coral brick set in mortar. Sixteen stucco disciple figures are ranged around its neck. The base was later reworked into an octagon carrying four pointed niches with Buddha images, in a manner attributed to the reign of King Narai — so the monument you see carries at least two periods of work in one structure.
The two are recorded differently and it matters. Two secondary compilations give the temple's own ancient-monument registration as a Royal Gazette announcement of 21 July B.E. 2518 (1975) over 9 rai 3 ngan and 20 square wa; that instrument could not be opened for this page. The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, separately, records the surrounding ancient settlement as not registered. They are different objects with different status, and reading one record as covering the other would be a mistake.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Songkhla’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.